"But you have. Look at this."
The girl took the handkerchief and stared at it, and then stuffed it into her handbag.
"I don't.' she said, hanging her head silently, choked with tears.
They had not met again. And what might she have done with the handkerchief? But more than the handkerchief, what of the girl herself? Was she still living, now more than forty years later?
How many years had he forgotten her, until she was brought back by the peaked upper lip of the girl who had been put to sleep? There was lipstick on the handkerchief, and the girl's had been wiped away. And would she think, if he left it by her pillow, that he had stolen a kiss? The guests here were of course free to kiss. Kissing was not among the forbidden acts. A man could kiss, however senile he was. The sleeping lips might be cold and wet. Do not the dead lips of a woman one has loved give the greater thrill of emotion? The urge was not strong with Eguchi, as he thought of the bleak senility of the old men who frequented the house.
Yet the unusual shape of these lips did arouse him. So there are such lips, he thought, lightly touching the center of the upper lip with his little finger. It was dry. And the skin seemed thick. The girl began licking her lip, and did not stop until it was well moistened. He took his finger away.
"Does she kiss even when she's asleep?"
He stopped, however, at briefly stroking the hair at her ear. It was coarse and stiff. He got up and undressed.
"You'll catch a cold. I don't care how healthy you are." He put her arms under the bedding and covered her breasts, He lay down beside her. She turned over. Then, with a groan, she thrust her arms abruptly out. The old man was pushed cleanly away. He laughed on and on. A most valiant sort of apprentice, he said to himself.
Because she had been put into a sleep from which she would not awaken, and because her body was probably numbed, he could do as he wished. But the vigour to take such a girl by force was no longer in Eguchi… or he had forgotten it. He approached her with a soft passion, a gentle affirmation, a feeling of nearness to woman. The adventure, the fight that set one to breathing harder, had gone.
"I'm old." he muttered, thinking such thoughts even while smiling at his rejection by the sleeping girl.
He was not really qualified to come to this house as the other old men came. But it was probably the girl with the darkly glowing skin who made him feel more keenly than usual that he too had left before him not a great deal of life as a man.
It seemed to him that to force himself upon the girl would be the tonic to bring stirrings of youth. He was growing a little tired of the 'house of the sleeping beauties'. And even as he wearied of it the number of his visits increased. He felt a sudden urging of the blood: he wanted to use force on her, break the rule of the house, destroy the ugly nostrum, and so take his leave. But force would not be necessary. There would be no resistance from the body of the girl put to sleep. He could probably even strangle her with no difficulty. The impulse let him, and an emptiness, dark in its depths, spread over him. The high waves were near and seemed a great distance away, partly because here on the land there was no wind. He saw the dark floor of the night if the dark sea. Raising himself on an elbow, he brought his face to the girl's. She was breathing heavily. He decided not to kiss her, and fell back again.
He lay as she had thrust him away, his chest exposed. He went to the other girl, She had been facing away, but she rolled over toward him. There was a gentle voluptuousness in this greeting, even as she lay asleep. One hand fell at the old man's hip.
"A good combination." Toying with the girl's fingers, he closed his eyes. The small boned fingers were supple, so supple that it seemed they would bend indefinitely without breaking. He wanted to take them in his mouth. Her breasts were small but round and high. They fitted into the palm of his hand. The roundness at her hips was similar. Woman is infinite, thought the older man, with a touch of sadness. He opened his eyes. She had a long neck. It too was slender and graceful. But the slenderness was different from that of old Japan. There was a double line at the closed eyelids, so shallow that with the eyes open it might become but a single line. Or it might be at times single and then double. Or perhaps a single line at one eye and a double at the other. Because of the light from the velvet curtains he could not be sure of the color of her skin. But it seemed tan at the face, white at the neck, somewhat tan again at the shoulders, and so white at the breasts that it might have been bleached.
He could see that the darkly glowing girl was tall. This one did not seem to be much shorter. He stretched out a leg, His toes first came against the thick skinned sole of the dark girl's foot. It was oily. He drew his foot away hastily, but the withdrawal became an invitation. The thought flashed through his mind that old Fukura's partner when he had his last seizure had been this dark skinned girl. Hence tonight there were two girls.
But that could not be the case. The girl who had been with Fukura was in vacation until the welt over her neck and breast went away. Had the woman of the house not just this moment told him so? He again put his foot against the thick skinned sole of the girl's foot, and explored the dark flesh upwards.
A spasm came over to him, as of to say: 'initiate me into the spell of life'. The girl had pushed off the quilt, or rather the electric blanket beneath it. One foot lay flung outside the quilt. Thinking he would like to roll her out into the midwinter cold, he gazed at her breasts and abdomen. He put his head to a breast and listened to her heart. He had expected it to be strong, but it was engagingly subdued. But was it not a little uneven?
"You'll catch cold." He covered her, and turned off her side of the blanket. The spell that was a woman's life, he thought, was not so great a thing. Suppose he were to throttle her. It would be easy. It would be no trouble at all even for an old man. He took his handkerchief and wiped the cheek that had been against her breast. The girl's oily smell seemed to come from it. The sound of the girl's heart stayed on, deep in his ear. He put a hand to his own heart. Perhaps because it was his own, it seemed the stronger than the two.
He turned to the gentler girl, his back toward the dark one. The well shaped nose seemed the more courtly and elegant to his farsighted old eyes. He could not resist putting his hand under the long, slender neck and pulling her toward him. As her head moved softly toward him there came with it a sweet scent.
It mixed with the wild, sharp scent of the dark girl behind him. He brought the fair girl against him. Her breathing was short and rapid. But he need not fear that she would awaken. He lay still for a time.
"Shall I ask her to forgive me? As the last woman in my life?"
The girl behind him seemed to seek arouse him. He put out his hand and felt. The flesh there was as at her breasts.
"Be quiet. Listen to the winter waves and be quit." He sought to calm himself.
"These girls have been put to sleep; They might as well be paralyzed. They have been given some poison or some strong drug." And why? "Why if not money?" Yet he found himself hesitating. Every woman was different from every other. He knew that. And yet was the one before him so very different that he was ready to inflict upon her a wound that would not heal, a sorrow to last through her life? The sixty seven year old heal, a sorrow to last through her life? The sixty seven year old Eguchi could, if he wished, think that all women's bodies were alike. And in this girl there was neither affirmation nor denial, there was no response whatsoever. All that distinguished her from a corpse was that she breathed and had warm blood. Indeed tomorrow morning when the living girl awoke, would she be much different from an open eyed corpse? There was now in the girl no love or shame or fear. When she awoke there could remain bitterness and regret. He would not know who had taken her. She could but infer that was an old man. She would probably not tell the woman of the house. She would conceal to the end the fact that the rule of this house of old men had been broken, and so no one would know but herself. Her soft skin clung to Eguchi. The dark girl, perhaps after all chilly now that her side of the blanket had been turned off, pressed against Eguchi with her naked back. One of her feet was between the feet of the fair skinned girl. Eguchi felt his strength leave him… and again he wanted to laugh. He reached for the sleeping medicine. He was sandwiched tightly between them and could move only with difficulty. His hand on the fair girl's forehead, he looked at the usual tablets.